Effects of Urban Growth on Architectural Heritage: The Case of Buddhist Monasteries in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Urbanization is unavoidable on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and it directly influences the region’s architectural heritage. This study aims to evaluate the changes in urbanization around 152 Buddhist monasteries (3 km × 3 km) from 1993 to 2013 located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. To evaluate the changes, we adopt both nighttime light data and data from the Geographic Information System, which were verified by the spatial relationship between urban areas of Lhasa and monasteries on a meso-scale and the environmental changes around monasteries by visual interpretation on a micro-scale in the same phase. The results show that the level of urbanization around 43 monasteries has increased between 1993 and 2013, and the areas of significant influence from urban growth have expanded from Lhasa between 1993 and 2003 to the Yarlung Tsangpo River, Nyangqu, and Lhasa River regions, as well as to the surrounding areas of Xining, and Tibetan areas in Sichuan between 2003 and 2013. This study explores a method of monitoring the architectural heritage of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau using “remote sensing big data”, which can provide data support for policy formulation, technical intervention, and targeted field investigation on architectural heritage by screening research objects.